Zali Steggall pins donor blame on Climate 200 director

Zali Steggall has blamed Damien Hodgkinson, the director of Climate 200 and her former financial controller, for her breach of donation requirements.

Independent MP Zali Steggall in the House of Representatives on Tuesday. Picture: AAP

Warringah MP Zali Steggall has blamed Damien Hodgkinson, the director of Simon Holmes a Court’s Climate 200 and her former financial controller, for her breach of donation requirements, saying she and the Warringah Independents board had no oversight of coal baron’s John Kinghorn’s six-figure cheque.

Despite her father, solicitor of 40 years Jack Steggall, sitting on the organisation’s board, Ms Steggall insisted the “donation processing and accounting” had all been handled by Mr Hodgkinson, WI’s then accountant, with the rest of the board not aware the eight donations had been received as one cheque.

Mr Steggall supported his daughter’s claim, saying he had been aware of the eight donations at the time but had not been informed of the “total sum”.

He said it was likely Mr Hodgkinson had been aware of the ­donation’s original format.

“Zali and the WI board were aware that eight pledges for $12,500 were received in 2019,” a spokeswoman for Ms Steggall said in a statement.

“WI donation-processing and accounting was managed by WI’s then accountant. Zali and the WI board were not aware the eight donations had been received as one cheque from a family trust until advised by the AEC audit, at which point it was fixed.”

In addition to Mr Holmes a Court’s climate campaign group, Mr Hodgkinson is the financial controller for a raft of independent candidates’ political campaign vehicles, including Allegra Spender’s Wentworth Independents Limited and Monique Ryan’s Kooyong independent Limited.

Mr Hodgkinson did not return calls and texts.

Given she campaigned on a pro-climate platform and as an advocate for strengthening transparency requirements, the Warringah MP has come under fire after an AEC compliance review discovered the $100,000 cheque from the Kinghorn Family Trust had been split into eight separate donations, each below the disclosure threshold.

In an interview with The Project on Monday night, Ms Steggall said there had been a “mistake from an accounting point of view” by her team after the cheque was provided to Warringah Independents on March 28, 2019, but she made no mention of Mr Hodgkinson’s failure to inform the board.

“The cheque was provided to Warringah Independents and as soon as I was made aware of it, it was rectified,” she said.

Warringah Independents also listed DEM Australasia – where Mr Hodgkinson served as managing director until July 2020 – as the organisation’s principal place of business between December 2018 and March 2020.

In an overview of the candidate and electoral services program provided by DEM, the consultancy firm said it performed “political donation acceptance and reporting” services and it conducted diligent “fortnightly” review’s of reporting requirements for its clients.

“DEM Asia manages the donation and reporting infrastructure to ensure compliance with the complex donor management requirements in respect to both capped donation and prohibited donor requirements,” the website said.

“The official agent then man­ages the fortnightly reporting requirements for the pre-election reporting period.”

Amid ongoing factional brinkmanship in the NSW Liberal Party, local grassroots members fumed that the state infighting had prevented a Liberal candidate for Warringah from applying the blowtorch to Ms Steggall at a moment of vulnerability.

“The phones are running hot with members nonplussed that we don’t have a candidate in the field when Zali has been so exposed as a hypocrite by taking coal money,” a Warringah Liberal senior office-bearer told The ­Australian.